Golden Compass II
by TapTapAlways
Summary: An alternative take on what a second film could have been, not following the Canon first book ending. Featuring Iorik Byrnison, Serafina Pekkala, Lord Asriel and Lyra Belaqua heavily, but also featuring Kaysa, Fader Coram, Roger and various other awesome people and daemons.
1. Prologue

_This is a AU second film to follow the "Golden Compass", as I did not quite like what we who've read the first book knows is to follow. So this is my alternative take on what they could've done instead. I mean no copyright infringement and hope you will enjoy my alternative film._

 _Warning: There will be some spoilers for said book one ending if you read on._

 _TapTap_

The sky was still bright, even now in the dead of night, and there was both hope and dispair in the northern midnight sun. There was the strength and beauty of the world, in this moment of peace, and there was the fear of what might yet come to pass. There was a war brewing, there was the promise of worlds' ending, and it would soon be too late to tip the scales, either one way or the other. For all of the peace in this one moment, it was soon time, and the waves would break on what could be this unprepared world of theirs.

Serafina Pekkala looked back over their shoulders for a moment and watched the two sleeping children, as Mr. Scoresby navigated through the air in which she knew flight so well. They were safe there, resting against the Ice Bear king, who was seemingly awake though not very watchful, since they were still in the air. Maybe, she ought to make an errand of her own, before the children could reach their destination. Before that history -and she felt it was to be history- could no longer be unwritten. She did not doubt the child. No, Lyra's heart was not in question, nor her bravery, her sheer inventiveness or her wish to discover and to safeguard; but Serafina's own heart said it would be best this way. So she flew.


	2. I Fly for Freedom

_Look at that, cooperating plotbunnies! It is almost tragic how well I understand my own muses..._

 _No copyright infringement is intended. Copyright laws allow_ _creativity_ _for authors and artists, and I am all for it. This alternative story, however, is so utterly harmless - I am only being creative in turn, and mean no offense whatsoever._

 _TapTap_

Saying her goodbyes to Mr Scoresby, and nodding respectfully to the Ice Bear Iorik, Serafina Pekkala left the airship, flying for herself with her bow, joined in the air eventually by Kaysa, her daemon.

The goose brought her tidings of other places, of the struggle to reunite Billy Costa and other injured children with their daemons. News of the renewed but considerably slowed efforts of the Gobblers, and of the Gyptians' effective efforts at thwarting them. He brought her both hope and despair in turn. Their treatments for the at this point dying children did not show much promise, even if child and soul were reunited physically. While bringing both parts comfort, it did little to restore their bond or the child's health. They could reunite the two parts, but they remained _parts_. Were they too broken to ever be whole again? Soon, it would not matter as they quickly ran out of time.

Being a witch, and a clan leader, Serafina was often separated from her daemon, the two of them usually covering the distance by splitting up, but being back with her daemon brought comfort to her, too, even if the news he brought were of little real comfort.

She wondered if this Asriel Lyra had taken to calling her father had considered what he might risk as he crossed the barrier between worlds. If, and to her, even if not to the child, that was an if, he intended on crossing them himself. Lord Asriel seemed capable of love, at least Serafina hoped so from what little she had seen of the man -the rings he left in the air instead of the man in his flesh- but he must have also had his ruthless sides. She feared exposing Lyra to them, at least without inquiries. What had the rough noble planned? She promised herself to find out, before the good-hearted children payed a price too heavy for any child to pay for their noble but innocent intentions.

Different from the magisterium, the witches did not fear Dust, but it held power, and if this man was willing to play with it, who knew what he might unleash, or -perhaps worse- unintentionally throw under lock and key, locking the world up instead of unlocking it. No, Serafina Pekkala, clan leader and witch of the sky, held no fear of Dust, but she feared dim intentions and plain ignorance. And she was about to investigate both.


	3. I Haven't Seen Your Face Before -

_All respect to the author of this series and the creators behind the film. This is a tribute, nothing else, as a second film was never released. No copyright infringement intended._

 _TapTap_

Lord Asriel needed a child to test his theories. He did not doubt that the child in question wouldn't make it through his experiment, but a part of him didn't care. It was too dangerous to do it any other way, and still relatively untouched by Dust, a child was his only chance for the first effort. If he was to ever cross through the boundary to another world, he needed to start with this.

Another part of him felt deep revulsion for the task, but he flew, as he always had in the face of danger and darkness, into his work. Busied by experiments and trials, he could not feel doubt, he had learnt that so long ago. He thought Stelmaria was glaring at him about the fact, but she had since long ceased her efforts to argue with him and curled up before the fire in his study, as the giant cat she was. He half-wished he could just join her.

He had only the one manservant up here, but he heard the man move around, and thus he also heard him opening the front doors, a somewhat troublesome action up here, where the snow was deeper than the length of a full-grown man. They were lucky the laboratory they built was set up in a building erected by clever people, and all windows and doors faced the leeward side of the mountainous formation which offered ir shelter. It ended up cavelike because of it, but Lord Asriel considered it a small price to pay. In truth, he had always liked mountains and caves, ever since he was a little boy and got in trouble for diving in the cave near their country home, so maybe it was merely another advantage and not a price at all.

He expected some news - he always got what he asked for, after all, and he had asked for a child to come here - after hearing someone arriving, and the lack of noise told him it was no enemy, but what he did not expect was a _witch_. Not to mention _not_ a witch so beautiful, who looked right through him as if not one of his considerable mental walls were there.

"You mean to cross over to another world," she asked without preamble, "how do you mean to do so? You're a man of action, Lord Asriel," her pronunciation of his name was sharp and implied rather deeply that she did not trust him.

"I mean to cross through the Dust," he replied, guarded. He had no idea who she was, after all, and she was disarming, making him want to arm himself all the more. The large goose which had followed her into the room was looking at the enchanted Stelmaria with as much fascination returned.

"It clings to you, ever since your daemon fixed her shape. How can you..." the still unintroduced witch's eyes narrowed into impossible slits of confirmed suspicion. "You aim to use a child. They will _never_ survive that." His eyes told she all that she needed to know, he knew that much. She threw back the only weapon she had against this idea. "Your daughter will be here soon. She comes to bring you the golden compass. She can read it, and she trusts you to guide her. Maybe she just _trusts_ you, without any reservations." She bore her eyes into his startled ones, while Kaysa hissed at the shamed snow leopard.


	4. That's An Awful Lot To Sort Out

_This story belongs to its author and creators, the respect and love necessary to write a tribute belongs to me._

 _TapTap_

Lyra watched the early dawn, barely awake. She was heading to her father. She had not seen him in what seemed so long a time, but was really so short, it was just that so much had happened since then. Jordan and that cloak-closet seemed ages ago. Besides, the last she'd known him it had been as her uncle.

She had thought herself an orphan, and as far as her mother went, she considered herself one, still. But now, _now_ , the man who'd been her only relative - her secret comfort of _really_ _belonging_ \- he was her _father_. No longer was that name belonging to merely a figure made of shadows, someone's who's identity and motivations had been hidden in the dim mists of strange things adults did, and she felt warm hope blooming in her chest.

She did not want to become a lady, grow up in a white house with too many adults telling her what to do, but she'd like it growing up in the north, with her father. _Her father_.

She sat up and leaned against the railing of Mr Scoresby's airship to watch the dawn. The sky was beautiful up north, the deep purple and soft pink of sunrise conquering the dark and light blues slowly, taking possession over a sky which had never been truly dark. The shifting northern lights, in all of their shimmering greens and silver, too, occupied the skies, and she wanted to learn all about them. Were _they_ to do with Dust? What was known about them? Soon, she hoped, and _knew_ somehow, she would be with her father and could ask _him_. She was determined, after all, to find him, and she had no doubt she, Roger and Iorik would solve also _this_ mystery.

Concluding to ask her father all of her questions, just as soon as she'd brought him the Alethiometer, Lyra leant back against Iorik and fell back asleep. _Not_ quite yet. They'd be there all the quicker if she slept.


	5. - But I Recognise Your Eyes

_This story is one that writes itself, where the words want to be in a certain way, and though I am aware it will not be all that long, I hope it will be enjoyable in its pure form, no frills added._

 _This story belongs to its author and creators, the respect and love necessary to write a tribute belongs to me._

 _TapTap_

"There must be another way, someone else..." At least, Serafina noted with some relief, there was feeling in Asriel, even if it still left rather something to desire. "Not that child." It was not the first time he uttered those worlds. "There will be another, I will..." "You will _regain_ your senses. If you even have any. How can you hope to fight the corrupt by being just as dark as they are?"

Serafina bore down on him with her eyes. She was taken by him, he struck a note within her she hadn't felt for some time -since times his daughter had glimpsed in her golden compass, the first time they met, in fact- but she refused to feel anything for such a monster as this man hoped to become. She had no doubt that had he seen Roger, he would have acted without thinking at his first opportunity. She had been wise when she withheld that piece of information from him, she was certain of it.

"What would you have me do?" The man's eyes, so full of something seemingly lost within the rest of him, rested on her face, then her own eyes, for a moment, before he glanced at their daemons. The purring snow leopard had curled around the goose, who had spread his wings protectively across her back in turn. Their daemons trusted one another, at sight almost. It was so rare...

Did he think, just for a moment, of his last lover? The Coulter woman, known to lord and witch alike for her manipulative ways, her daemon _drawing_ in rather than _offering_ friendship, so different from this. They both took the leap, to trust, at the same moment. Such a little moment, worth so much.

Serafina's eyes were softer as she replied to him, and his were unveiled as he listened. And while their daemons slept before the fire, man and woman _talked_.


	6. Why Did You Never Tell Me?

_I stole the fact that Lyra has met Kaysa from the books. I'm not giving it back. I like the symmetry of the daemons belonging there, together between their two humans in a sentence._

 _This story belongs to its author and creators, the respect and love necessary to write a tribute belongs to me._

 _TapTap_

Mr Scoresby couldn't really land, and so he was forced to drop his friend and the children off and head back, though he did not like it. The witch had seemed to have a plan, and there was nothing to say against young Lyra's plans usually, but it still did not sit well with him. Well, Iorik was with them, and surely he was the best one to have with you in a pinch, as he'd told that resourceful little girl when they had first met.

Lyra was not afraid, as Iorik, Roger and her made it the short way from where Mr Scoresby had dropped them over to where her father's laboratory was located. Her father would know how to set everything right, she was sure of it. He'd help. She needed to bring him the Alethiometer, and he'd know what to do. She was meant to, she just _knew_. It was her father who had given it to the master of Jordan for safekeeping in the first place.

It was not far, but the snow and winds were too much for Roger and her to tackle by themselves. The short walk would have taken them hours without Iorek, now wearing his armour again, and faithfully shielding them from the worst of it.

Tired, even though they'd only been awake for half an hour, they reached her father's laboratory.

They were let in by a man with an already troubled expression, who startled badly at the sight of Iorek, who could only barely squeeze by, though the hallway was not that narrow, one side made by natural stone.

Leaving the Ice Bear in the first spot out of the snow where he could comfortably fit, the two children let the silent, nervous man with his videly open, startled eyes point them down a narrow staircase towards two low voices.

Lyra peeked into the warm room, seeing bookcases, scientific equipment she was sure scholars' at Jordan had taught her the names of, but which she couldn't name, and on a thick heartrug, sat Serafina Pekkala, two familiar daemons, and her _father_.

Before anyone could really react, Lyra threw herself into a hug with her father, who only just managed to shift to accomodate her. Her uncle had not been awfully fond of such displays, (usually she wasn't, either) but she _was_ going to hug her father, when she knew she had an alive father for the first time.

Half of Lyra expected a reprimand, while the other half plain didn't care, but all Lord Asriel did was cup a hand around her hair and kiss her temple, with a soft, "my girl." She could have sworn that Serafina Pekkala, who greeted her smile over her father's shoulder with an answering, wide one, mumbled, "You see? It is not so hard."

Finally letting go, Lyra noticed her father startle at the sight of Roger, glancing at Serafina Pekkala, but his mouth only narrowed momentarily in response before he looked back to Lyra. Within the hour, Pan was sleeping between Stelmaria's protective paws, while Lyra had curled up in her father's lap. Serafina had pulled a blanket across the sleeping boy and his daemon, and the two adults spoke on. Serafina would never admit just how much Asriel reminded her of a lion with his cub, as he spread out before the fire, cradling his daughter protectively all the while. Maybe, being a decent human human being would come easily to the man, after all. Either way, Serafina had not lived this long without knowing how to nurture hope.


	7. I Could Have Loved You (And I Do)

_This story belongs to its author and creators, the respect and love necessary to write a tribute belongs to me._

 _TapTap_

"Why did you never tell me? Mrs _Coulter_ ," Lyra grimaced at the name, making her father laugh and both their daemons curl their fur in dislike, "said she was not _allowed_ to keep me, but you were right _there_! Why did you _never_ tell me?" "I stayed," he grimaced, given a sten look by Serafina Pekkala, "well, when I was there, anyway. I never denied you belonged with me. But, it would have been dangerous for you... and I was not ready." He added the last words, given yet another stern look by the witch, who could tell he wasn't being entirely truthful without her prompting. Well, he could not be expected to change overnight, said clanleading witch concluded. He _was_ doing just _fine_ , all things considered.

"But, I would have loved to have you as my father!" Lyra objected, still half-lying in her father's lap. After a second of hesitation, Lord Asriel replied, making Serafina proud with his words. "It might not feel like it to _you_ , Lyra," he offered, "but you are still very young. I can be here now. And I _am_. Now go back to sleep. It is..." realising he did not keep the time very faithfully up here, he finished with words that would have been sheepish, coming from anyone but him and his powerful presence, "still too early for you to be awake."

"You're lucky. For her, and for her easily forgiving temper. And for her not knowing what you _intended_ here," Serafina noted with some harshness as the child had gone back to joining her friend in sleep. Lord Asriel looked up from his daughter, sleeping so peacefully in his lap, rising in a smooth motion."

"Yes." The admission must have cost him, so Serafina did not press him, as he went to carry his daughter to bed, not for the first time - though the times had been too few - but at the same time the very first time. He'd never again tuck in, speak to or ignore his niece, but Serafina got the impression he did not consider this a loss. Nor should he. They stayed in the warmer rooms below stairs all night.

They had many things to plan, during the next few days, but there was time. Soon enoguh, she'd have to fly with word, decisions had to be made and actions taken. For now, Serafina allowed herself a brief respite, here, in the warmth which felt like a kind of family she'd never had - man, woman and child.


	8. Fly With Me, Stand By Me, Fight For Me

_This story belongs to its author and creators, the respect and love necessary to write a tribute belongs to me._

 _TapTap_

In the end, Asriel could not have chosen a better spot, Serafina noted with satisfaction as the first witches started to arrive. They had to make shelters of their own, but it was a perfect place to rally and gather - no one could come here easily, nor by accident. He surely had a determined daughter who had made it this far to find him.

Even those sent by the magisterium had not yet made it. Assuming they ever would, but she could not sense their presence in the air. Maybe the Ice Bears had made them another service and simply stepped on them. She did not even care if it would have been by accident or with intent.

Greeting her fellow witches as they arrived, she smiled at the needless errands of Ariels lone servant. The master of the house had not reacted at all to spotting an Ice Bear in his hallway (until Lyra had stepped up the stairs and Asriel promtly caught her, keeping his body between his daughter and the bear, anyway) but the servant was still terrified days later.

The Gyptians were the next to arrive, and at the very last, after all other fractions, the Ice Bears - alerted by Lee Scoresby - came to follow their king into battle. These locals came late, leaving all the planning to their allies and their king, either preferring it this way or just knowing where their strength lay.

As the adults planned, Lyra did what she could, reading her golden compass for hours, telling her father and her friends everything she could. Somewhat unusually for her, she accepted the gentle words of the Gyptian king as he kindly explained to her that protecting her on the battlefield would inevitably make them weaker, as they could not risk any harm coming to her, and so she actually never tried to argue that she ought to be there. She had hit Roger when he had dared suggest that this was somewhat ladylike, and a laughing (and honestly very proud) Lord Asriel had had to come to his rescue.

Lord Ariel had come to take a leading role, maybe naturally, as he not only knew the local terrain best -besides the bears- but also did not have a fraction of his own to lead within their forces. It was natural to decide that Serafina should lead the witches, the king of Gypsies his own people -individual clans lead by their own clan leaders- and Iorek the Ice Bears, while Lee Scoresby had volunteered to back the witches up in the air. And so, coordinating the different fractions fell of the capable shoulders of Lyra's father.


	9. All Of Us - Only Together

_The battle is on. Which isn't all that good if you're battling against an army of Ice Bears. If you're fighting alongside them, it is_ much better _._

 _This story belongs to its author and creators, the respect and love necessary to write a tribute belongs to me._

 _TapTap_

It was even more frightening to watch from a distance than to be right up in it, Lyra concluded as she peeked from the single window in the house facing in the right direction. Not that the fight was all that close, but she could see the glittering lights of what was hopefully Magisterium soldiers dying. Not that the battle had promised to be especially even. Lord Asriel, Fader Coram, Iorek, Serafina Pekkala and the king of the Gyptians had planned this well.

Trapping their enemies between the rock and the Gyptians, letting the witches shoot from the air and the Ice Bears charge straight into the hopefully trapped enemies, it was a strategy which would hopefully work well. They had many battles ahead.

* * *

It was only the first battle, and not in any way the last, nor the only time Lyra greeted her returning father with a relieved, minute-long, crushing hug as Pan jumped around a patient Stelmaria, but watching them from a distance never got any easier.

As the rumours of their rebellion spread, the magisterium sent more and more forces to stop them in their tracks, but between the Gyptians of the sea, the witches of the air and the bears of the ice, they were all overrun. Lyra found it terrible, though not as terrible as she would her friends dying, and she usually sat after the battles and listened to the songs of the witches and Gyptians, revering their fallen enemies' souls after they had honoured their own fallen, each man and woman of their own lost in turn. Lord Asriel took to going and finding her there, bringing the sleeping child back to his house, and later, when they finally moved further south, bit by bit, his tent in camp.

Said tent was quickly the largest one, as it became a logical council hall when they moved, not only Iorek insisting on staying with Lyra, but Serafina Pekkala usually found there as well. There was rarely less than ten people in that tent, peacefully speaking in hushed voices, or whispering frantically, the sounds often loud and uninhibited during the day, only muted by the promised rage of Iorek and Asriel if anyone dared risk waking their charge.

Serafina Pekkala was often seen smiling, as she watched Lord Asriel guard his child almost jealously, and some understood. Ma Costa and fader Coram were the first two to smile secretly in recognition, but neither one of them ever spoke of it. One day, it would be the time when the Witch felt she could speak herself.

Even later, when Kaysa was increasingly found sleeping next to Stelmaria, the snow leopard still in sleep guarding the cat between her paws, no one spoke of things they were wise enough to understand they had no right to mention. One day it would be time, and there would be words to express it with, when Lyra and Serafina alike fell asleep, leaning on a shoulder each of Lord Asriel. He never spoke of it either, as he gently carried and tucked them both in. To those privileged few who got to see the man's eyes in those moments, there was no need for him to.


	10. Never Tell Me What To Do Ever Again

_This story belongs to its author and creators, the respect and love necessary to write a tribute belongs to me._

 _TapTap_

It was in many ways like that giant wave Serafina Pekkala had pictured weeks earlier, drowning the world, only this world was washing it clean.

The universities stepped up, keeping a semblance of organisation, taking up an ounce of authority. Unlikely leaders as scholars made, it was a necessary action as magisterium outpost after outpost in their world fell. Most people needed some help adjusting, and as the scholars were unwilling guides in this new world where no words were tabu and knowledge of all kinds were embraced, no once had to wrestle their newfound power away from them when it was no longer needed.

Throughout it all, Lord Asriel took a leading role as a Lord and scholar, and Serafina Pekkala stayed in close contact to him, leading the new world from the other side. They probably both knew that it could not continue in this way, but neither spoke up. Not, until there was some stability, a full year after that first battle, far north, which moved south as the magisterium's thinning and unprepared loyals fell like ripe corn for a scythe for their alliance.

Finally, it was time.


	11. I Am Your Father Is She Your Mother?

_"When you get spanked, I hurt too." This comment in the beginning of the film, while making some sort of sense for the time period, just bothers me. So I'm fixing it. Asriel is a protective, possessive bastard, my Asriel even more so, and he'd never hit a child, nor allow anyone else to. And that's just... final._

 _This story belongs to its author and creators, the respect and love necessary to write a tribute belongs to me._

 _TapTap_

Lyra and her father had together gone back to a strangely unchanged Jordan from the one Lyra and her uncle had left apart. Asriel had announced he would make more trips into the north, bringing his _daughter_ , but the master of the university had welcomed his presence until such a time. Order might be restored after the Magisterium's rule had been so thoroughly ended, but Lord Asriel Belaqua remained an authority of more than northern lights ever after.

It was not with any degree of surprise, that Lyra walked into their private sitting room one evening after her lessons ended, to find not only her father, but also Serafina Pekkala already there. The two were sitting needlessly close together, her father even having abandoned his usual comfortable chair to sit on its large, padded footrest, his one knee bent and almost touching the crossed legs of Serafina. Lyra watched them for nearly half a minute, talking fast and lower than she could hear, before her father noticed her and frowned at her eavesdropping.

Avoiding his lecture by instead throwing herself into Serafina Pekkala's waiting arms, Lyra hugged the woman she'd wish to grow up to be like tightly. When she whispered, "I missed you," it had nothing to do with stopping Lord Asriel's lecture on manners before it begun. Were her father really cross enough to give her a dressing down for it, nothing could stop him anyway.

Lyra knew that her father rarely bothered to be cross. He did not believe in rules, nor did he ever spank her, like had sometimes previously been her punishment, and the one time after they'd returned someone else had tried to her father had physically thrown him from the room. No one had dared to try, since, but it became the father's perogative to punish and raise his child. Between starting to grow up during their time away and responding well to her father's peculiar form of "I have few rules but if you don't follow them all hell will break lose" parenting, there were few complaints of her behaviour.

"Lyra," Serafina's fond voice, never pronouncing her name in that hateful way of Mrs Coulter, brought her back to the present. "Your father and I have talked. We have... some changes we'd like to run by you. You know we like each other, and I know you do not have a mother, but..."

"Of course I have a mother," Lyra told the two adults without awaiting the end of that sentence, shifting her eyes to Serafina only and announcing, without a shadow of a doubt, "it is you."

The witch never left them for long, ever again.


End file.
